When you wake up the next day, you find that Techno is gone.
The bed is devoid of the intense warmth that emitted off of him- instead traded for an, average, room temperature.
The fire must have been blazing for your room to be considered an average room temperature, because room temperature was usually below freezing with how quickly heat seems to escape this house.
Regardless, you were awake now, Techno wasn't here, and now you had the rest of the day to waste.
The talk you had with him last night made you feel better. You were still worried, and still sick of staying put, but it was just a little easier to focus on the future.
Shuffling around on the bed, you sat up, yanking the fleece blankets with you, keeping them wrapped around your shoulders for heat retention.
Your stomach was aching for some sort of breakfast, so you eventually meandered down the ladder to rummage around in the basement food supply.
Cracking open the chest on the bottom right you shuffle around in there, pulling the first thing that felt vaguely food like out, which appeared to be some dried beef.
It'll do.
With a bite and slap, you shove the whole thing into your mouth, climbing back up the ladder to start your daily schedule of staring out the window, all the while idly munching on some beef.
If anyone were to look through the window at you, they'd make eyecontact with a very strange facial expression, because you know- maybe shoving a whole steak in your mouth wasn't smart. And maybe your mouth can't fit a whole steak in there, but you did it anyway and now you were awkwardly chewing on it.
Whatever.
It gave you something to do.
Until you finished it.
And then it was just staring.
And then staring became a droning tap of your fingers against the window sill.
How much time had passed since you sat here?
You groan, slipping off the window sill to meander over to the anvil.
For no other reason then to look for something to do.
Maybe he had something that needed enchanted?
You never really enchanted things, so you're sure to have the levels needed.
That thought led you to rooting around in his chests again- searching for any spare tool to try enchanting.
Nothing you looked at seemed like it needed enchanted though. No matter which way you looked at a lonely iron axe- it just didn't seem worth putting effort into.
You brought it upstairs just in case, but eh.
Useless.
Which still left you with absolutely nothing to do.
At all.
So, roving eyes went from one appliance to another, shifting from steeled anvil, to orderly brewing stand.
Thats.
That's a thought right there.
What if you brewed something?
What if...
....
You squinted your eyes at the brewing stand, already on your feet and limping to the closest chest to try and find the supplies needed for potions...
Everything was conveniently there- netherwart and glass bottles sitting in one corner, blaze powder and glowstone stuffed jars that were filled to the brim and just aching to be used...
You gathered the necessary supplies, awkwardly tumbling over to the brewing stand, setting things down atop the furnace because the one thing Techno lacked in his house aside from insulation, was counter space.
You began with the bottles, conveniently filled with water, and you could only think that he had been planning on making more potions.
One, two, three clinks- three sets of glass placed into metal bearings. Blaze powder was already loaded into the fuel slot, so netherwart was the first thing you needed to add.
Netherwart was weird- it felt like dried up mushrooms, almost crunchy- and overall were just... strange.
Not that it mattered when you shoved a piece down the brewing stand pipe- letting it get siphoned to all three potions.
The gentle bubbling noise was soothing in a way. Only hot things bubbled like that- and what better comfort then heat.
Coal was a messy fuel source- but Blaze powder?
Blaze powder was clean. You could heat potions without shattering the glass with sudden heat changes, or melting it slowly over time.
It was filtered in small specks to the heating stones below, giving the water a soft bubble.
Perfect for culturing liquid magic.
In preparation for the next step, you scooped some blaze powder into your hand, dusting off excess to get it just right.
Making this kind of potion was tedious, because too much blaze powder as an ingredient? And it would most assuredly shatter the glass.
The last of the netherwart filtered in, fizzling the water and making it a little less see through, to which you then dropped in a small dose of blaze powder.
It fizzled as it dropped in, filtering down the tube and making the water even murkier.
An unsaturated dark red.
You gathered the glowstone while you waited for the powder to fully filter.
The gentle bubbling was consistent on your ears, and you frowned at how quickly glowstone moved around. One breath and it was sent scattering everywhere, so you had to be careful not to breath too hard on it.
Once you properly dosed it, you waited for the blaze powder to be done, and then dropped the glowstone in.
More bubbling, more filtering.
Until finally, it swirled with completion.
This.
This was a complete potion.
Every ingredient was added.
Every possible thing done to it was done.
You stood. Awkwardly in front of it, staring it down as thoughts clouded in your head.
There was a reason you made a strength potion.
Oh- you know why you made a strength, and not a jump boost, or swiftness.
A little- whispering thought in the back of your head creeped to the forefront of your mind-
Why can't I do what they did?
It was like poison.
Seeping into the spirales of your thoughts, inking anything else with the sickening idea.
They used to do it all the time.
If you did it, what would it matter.
Just this once- just this once to know exactly what it did to someone.
You shuffled away from the brewing stand, instead, to the iron axe you had found and brought up from the basement.
It was propped up near the anvil, so you plucked it off the ground with a huff of breath, before wobbling back to the brewing stand.
Just one drop.
That's all you needed.
The axe was raised, one of your hands keeping the sharp iron steady against the palm of your non-dominant hand.
With one clean Slice, red leaked out of your hand. Drip- dripping onto the floor, you gentle set the axe down, instead holding your cut hand directly over the brewing stand and squeezing.
Blood dripped down onto it, some going through the filtering tube, and some messily splattering onto the glass of the potions.
This is how they did it... right?
Isn't this how those hunters did it?
All the better to know the full process of something- to better be aware of the situation at hand.
If, your assuming Dream, truly does know what you are, a lot of... problems become much, much bigger.
He knew to shoot that arrow at you- at specifically that time- and he knew that it needed to be that time if the fact that he kept goading you was anything to go off of.
He wanted you to be stressed beforehand.
You squint harshly at the potion, watching your blood color the dull red inside.
Not so dull anymore.
Much, much more saturated- brimming with power.
These potion were done.
With a huff, you grab the edge of your sleeve-
Technically Techno's sleeve-
Grabbing each potion individually and wiping the blood that was on them off.
Can't have dried blood lying around.
You glance to the blood on the axe- and then to your still dripping hand, and then to the wooden floor.
Alright.
That's way more blood then you meant to spill.
How in the world were you going to clean this up with only a sleeve.
Apparently, you didn't need to think too deeply about that.
The door swung open, a massive gust of cold air sweeping in before it got closed again.
Very, very slowly, you glanced up.
To find Techno just blankly staring at you.
"Uuuhhh-" you wryly smile, "I can explain?"
He doesn't say anything.
Just staring.
Until he unclips his cape, hangs it up, and kicks his boots to get the ice off. The mask gets taken off next, set against some random place, before he calmly struts in your direction.
His hair glistened with melting snow, braid swinging down to rest over his shoulder as he leaned down.
One of his hands cupped your own, softly spreading your fingers out to see how deep the cut on your hand was.
His hands were so big compared to yours, so you glanced up from his hands to look him in the face, but however hunched over he was to look at your hand did nothing to stop the intimidation factor.
His thumb softly padded over the cut, to which you winced, and he then snapped his face back up to make eyecontact with you.
"I left for six hours."
"Six very boring hours." You pipe up.
"What happened."
"..." You merely side eye the iron axe, and his head twitches to follow your line of sight. He glances at the axe, and then the potions, and again to the cut on your hand, before reconnecting with your stare.
"I- I don't know if you know this- I don't know if it's common knowledge to whatever it is you are, but potions don't need axes to be made."
"What if I said I was enchanting it." You say, to dissuade against him linking two and two together.
But Techno's sharp. He's a quick thinker, and sometimes an overthinker, and you knew for a fact that he was suspicious of such a weak excuse.
"And the fact that the axe isn't enchanted, and there's blood all over the brewing stands means...what exactly?"
You pause, withholding your grin to say with a blank face, "Uuuh, maybe I'm a clumsy bitch, I don't know."
His lips twitch, for a small moment, but he doesn't reply, still searching for a serious answer.
A few tense seconds pass. And still you don't fess up, so he drops the whole ordeal to instead start rummaging for bandages and cleaning supplies.
You immediately miss the warmth of his hand enclosed around your own hand, frowning at nothing as he stood back to full height and lets you stand awkwardly next to your scattered potions.
"Pelt...?" You question, to which he chucks a pelt at you from over his shoulder-
You catch it, looking at it for a moment to find that it was a rabbit.
The entire house is gonna be covered in pelts at this rate. You still don't know why he gets them, but he does-
Maybe you could ask him?
You glance up from the pelt to take in his broad back.
Moderately wet with melted snow- shirt clinging to his shoulder blades as he bent to search for medical supplies.
Yeah, you can ask him.
"Why so many pelts?"
"I'll tell you." He pauses, "When you tell me why you cut yourself."
Alright.
Fine.
He can play that game if he wants.
Your not gonna indulge him, but he can try all he wants.
How are you even supposed to tell someone that out of morbid curiosity you tried making a potion with your own blood. And that other people did that very same thing in the past and you were merely trying to prepare for if that happens again in the present.
Too heavy.
You're not sure you want to drop that on him. On anyone.
He swings back around just as your eyes drift away from his back, making you jump and he took a stride closer and re-grabbed your cut hand.
He pulled your hand closer to himself, before dragging a potion of some sort over your cut, dropped a few drops on it and watching the skin scab.
He paused, looking from it to you, before grumbling out a, "Why do potions only sometimes work on you?"
"Circumstance."
"It's wildly inconvenient." He grumbles again, setting the potion down before bringing a roll of bandages up. The fabric was pulled taut around your palm and you winced at how tight he wrapped it.
When he finished, you expected to be let go.
You expected to wander off into the house again, left to your own devices before you inevitably wandered over to him to find some refuge in company, but he didn't let go.
He kept his broad hand wrapped around your own, thumb tracing the cut under the bandages.
His other hand was hovering nearby, pulled up like it wanted to latch onto your hand as well.
It didn't.
And he didn't look directly at you.
Instead favoring to keep his crimson eyes locked onto your hand. His lashes were feathered against his cheek bones, and you came to the startling realization of just how... pretty Techno was.
Scars aside, he was so elegant looking.
His eyes flicked up, meeting yours, and you remained staring, only cautiously blinking at the sudden eye contact.
His hand that had been hovering?
The one that had initially grabbed your bleeding hand when he came in the door?
It stopped lingering.
Not for your hand, but for his mouth-
It rose- with one swift movement- close enough for his tongue to peek out between the tusks and gently lap the blood still coating his thumb.
He didn't even seem to realize he did it.
If you had any sort of warmth on you, your cheeks would have been flushed, but you didn't, so you blankly stared with wide eyes as his tongue retreated back to his mouth, and his hand hung limply next to him.
Alright then.
Okay.
Alright.
This was fine.
Everything was fine.
You stayed trained on his own eyes-
Watching him think nothing of the action.
At least you thought so.
Dilated eyes didn't mean anything right?
His tongue flicking out to lick his lip meant nothing... right?
The fact that his hand twitched with the movement of wanting to do something wasn't anything- right?
Suddenly, he jerked away, releasing your hand and seemingly coming to the idea that he had better things to do.
Which included grabbing his satchel, and heading to the basement to sort things.
You watched him as he disappeared down the ladder, confused and in a daze from the warmth that lingered near you.
What the hell.